Prison Abolition

Prison abolition refers to the ideal of eliminating prisons, lockups, and other incarceration facilities, and the current movement toward doing so. The intent is to replace prisons with alternative correctional methods that are more humane and useful than imprisonment in addressing the response to crime and criminality in contemporary society. Prisons in the United States have a disproportionate minority population. Prison abolitionists and some social scientists believe that in many states and at every stage of the justice system, there is overrepresentation of minorities and the poor. This entry presents the arguments of prison abolitionists.

Prison abolition has a long history in the United States. Although the development of U.S. prisons in the early 1800s reflected the Enlightenment idea that prisons were a more humane alternative to corporal and capital punishment, by the late 19th century the inadequacies of most prisons and prison facilities had led many experts to call for their abolition. Imprisonment was viewed by some not as an enlightened approach but as a stain on civilization that demonstrated a lack of compassion for the poor and the marginalized in society. Others viewed prisons as inherently brutal and [Page 651]useless in fighting crime. Today, proponents of prison abolition see the prison system as unfit to manage the social problems it was designed to resolve. The perspective is based on overwhelming statistical data that show that the present correctional methods are ineffective in rehabilitating offenders. For example, a study by the U.S. Department of Justice found that 67.5% of prisoners released in 1994 were rearrested within 3 years, an increase over the 62.5% found for those released in 1983. Instead, in many cases the prison system actually worsens the criminal behavior of incarcerated offenders. Prison abolitionists do not believe that prisons either reduce crime or curtail criminal behavior.

Abolitionists postulate a radical and new paradigm shift from institutionalization to elimination of prisons and the removal of government control of these facilities. They propose (a) community-controlled forums for crime prevention and control, (b) replacing the economic system from capitalism to self-management of production workers and citizens, and (c) removal of nonviolent offenders from prisons. Abolition advocates suggest penal system reforms that replace institutionalization with alternative sentencing that utilizes supervised releases, probation, community service, restitution to victims (not the state), and other community-based sanctions. They also support abolishing mandatory minimum sentencing and primary crime prevention efforts rather than tertiary or secondary crime prevention. They also believe that policies (such as those tied to the War on Crime and the War on Drugs) that contribute to increases in prison populations should be eliminated.

One pressing issue for abolitionists is the disproportionate number of minority prisoners. In the United States, for example, there is overrepresentation of African Americans, people of color, and the poor in the prison population. African Americans are more likely to be incarcerated than European Americans and those who are wealthy. Another focal point of dissent from the abolitionist point of view is that those who are judicially processed, convicted, and imprisoned for theft, prostitution, or property crimes are in one way or another ostracized and sometimes permanently marginalized. They find it extremely difficult to find employment once they have been released from prison. They are thereby systematically magnetized back to the prison industry as their only hope and option for survival. Prison abolition requires the development of social programs such as affordable and adequate education and health care and employment opportunities in order to reduce and eliminate the overrepresentation of minority groups, especially Black males, in the prison population.

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